These Are The Most Searched Health Questions Of 2017

When it comes to medical concerns, you probably turn to Google before dialing up your local doctor. Well, thanks to the work of the people at Google Trends and CNN, you can now find out what has been troubling the nation (health-wise) in 2017.

Last week, Google spokesperson Evan Barbour Grippi provided CNN with a list of the most popular healthquestions based on US citizens’ Google searches between January and mid-December.

“What is lupus?” was another popular question, sneaking in at number 10. Presumably, this is because singer and actor Selena Gomez broke the news she had undergone a kidney transplant following a two year battle with lupus in September. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 322,000 in the States have “definite or probable” lupus – a condition that causes the immune system to attack their organs and tissues.

In a separate analysis, reporters used the analytics tool Google Trends to work out the year’s most frequently-asked health-related what and why questions globally. Opioids, the keto diet, and Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why were all trending in 2017.

The keto (or ketogenic) diet has a history that goes back decades but it saw a resurgence in 2017. According to CNN, the high (healthy) fat, low carb diet quadrupled in Google searches over the past 12 months.

13 Reasons Why (produced by Selena Gomez) was released earlier this year to critical acclaim and a great deal of controversy. The series centers on Hannah Baker, a teenager who commits suicide and leaves behind 13 tapes explaining her reasons for killing herself. The show has been renewed for a second season but, at the time, received a lot of criticism for romanticizing suicide. (Others praised the show’s creators for raising awareness.)